Writing: Less is More

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Cutting unnecessary words is a great way to improve your public communication writing. I think of it as panning for gold. Your message is the precious metal; the unnecessary words are the muddy water. Removing them gives your ideas space to shine.

How do we know when words serve no purposeare purposeless?

One thing to look for is empty phrases that add no extra meaning.

Basically, some of these are really sort of like verbal tics you know? These verbal tics are helpful when producingwriting dialogue or employing a casual tone, but otherwise they are just useless bulk. In long texts they build up like dirt on a window and obscure the view.

He was sort of unhappy because she had kind of lied about losing the dog.

He went to the park where he began to looked for the dog. Suddenly he saw a wagging tail in the bushes. He was just so happy to see Benji.

Another thing to look for is information that is repeated or already pretty obvious.

He asked the question whether anybody had seen his dog. (We already know it’s a question because of the word “asked.”)

Here’s anmajorly exaggerated example of a paragraph that could do with being verybe significantly shorter.

The high school teacher taught classes of history to high school students at Washington high school. She had worked as a high school teacher teaching history at the high school since 1990. She enjoyed working with student groups in lessons. It was a process that made her feel joy, euphoria and happiness.

The high school teacher taught classes of history to high school students at Washington high school. She had worked as a high school teacher teachingtaught history at the high schoolthere since 1990. She enjoyed working with studentsgroups in lessons. It was aThe process that made her happyfeel joy, euphoria and happiness.

So there we have it. Public communication writing is clearer and more accessible when we remove the unnecessarily wordy verbiage.